


the bruise of being

by lupinely (orphan_account)



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, no doubt this has been done many times. also they bone down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:38:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lupinely
Summary: When you are killed by a Death Note user—wrongfully, before your time—you are offered a choice: stay and watch the living world from a separate plane for the remainder of your rightful lifespan, or move on to whatever beyond should await you now, whether heaven or hell.L makes his choice almost at once.





	the bruise of being

 

 

 

 

When you are killed by a Death Note user—wrongfully, before your time—you are offered a choice: stay and watch the living world from a separate plane for the remainder of your rightful lifespan, or move on to whatever beyond should await you now, whether heaven or hell.

L makes his choice almost at once. It seemed so easy, then.

 

 

 

It’s just that— _really?_ To have everything snatched away from him when he had been so close—and to see in Light’s eyes as Light cradled L, dying (and goddamn Light for that, anyway, god _damn_ him), that Light still did not know L’s name but was victorious anyway, on a mere technicality, because he had somehow persuaded the shinigami into doing Light’s job for him— _that_ is how L is forced to leave this life? After clinging by his fingertips to the edge of the truth for so long, after knowing the truth but not being able to prove it, because how can you prove something orchestrated by magic and death powers of a realm beyond this universe that other human beings have no idea of—the odds had never been in L’s favor from the start. But it is only upon dying that L finally realizes that he can still lose even though he has been right all along.

Hubris, maybe.

So when the path is laid out before him, lit on both sides by hovering, wax-dripping candles, and the fork in the middle splits the road into two different directions—one back to the realm of the living, but a sideways realm, where L can only look and not touch, and the other towards a hazy unknowable horizon, a beyond that L has no way of comprehending or even anticipating—the choice is deceptively simple. He never did know when to let something go.

 

 

 

He returns at the scene of his own funeral, which is sort of a bummer, but an interesting one. There are more people there than he expected, considering that he lived his entire life in seclusion and that the fact of his death has been suppressed in the name of keeping the Kira investigation ongoing. The task force members are there, including Light, and that’s all, but it is nice in its own way, anyway. Mogi is actually crying, which L finds touching, if a little embarrassing. He tries to go over to Mogi and insinuate his presence to the man somehow, but it is impossible. L has not truly returned to the realm of the living but rather exists in a separate sideways plane that intersects with this existence. He can skate his fingertips over the realm where he was born, fog his breath against the glass of it, but he cannot permeate it nor affect it.

There is another being, however, not quite in the human realm but rather in a realm adjacent to it: the shinigami that now hovers behind Light, apparently invisible to the other members of the task force. It is not a shinigami whom L recognizes, is not Rem, and the shinigami realm of existence it exists in is also not completely aligned with the realm where L finds himself now but is askew both to him and the human realm. Yet the shinigami, apparently, can see through the realms as L can—and it looks over at L, meets his gaze (apparently unconcerned and unsurprised to see L there watching the proceedings of his own funeral), and gives L an exaggerated, sharp-toothed wink before turning back towards Light.

Interesting, L thinks. He has questions upon questions that he wishes to ask the shinigami—but despite all his efforts, now and later, to communicate with the shinigami, he never gets another sign of acknowledgement from it. Eventually he stops bothering to try.

When L finally turns his attention to Light (very reluctantly, considering that this is the reason he refused to pass into the great beyond in the first place), there is little he can interpret from Light’s expression. Light is standing silently beside L’s grave as the proceedings occur, his hands folded carefully in front of him, and his face is absolutely impassive. That complete impassivity is something that L recognizes from Light before his self-directed captivity: an impassivity that disappeared in the time L and Light spent tracking Higuchi together, yet which returned as soon as Higuchi had been caught. Seeing it again brings a sharp jolt of pain to L’s thoughts, surprisingly intense and overpowering. It is so hard to tell which side of Light that L ever saw is the real one: whether any of them are. To be in love with one of those personas, and still uncertain whether there is any truth to it at all—

Well, that’s what got him killed, isn’t it? Spending time agonizing over his mistakes is pointless, a useless act of self-flagellation, now that he is dead and it really doesn’t matter anymore how he ended up this way. Better to let the matter rest—to let, you might say, dead things lie.

That has never been something that L has ever been any good at.

L walks over to Light—he has no corporeal body anymore, but his presence in this realm of existence acts in a way to which he is familiar, conducting itself as if it were a physical presence rather than an immaterial fragment of a soul from another dimension—and stands before him, gazing frankly at his face, the look in his eyes, examining the set of Light’s shoulders and the tilt of his mouth and the ridge of his knuckles in a way that L had precious few chances to do when he was alive, even during all those months they spent handcuffed together at the wrist. L is embarrassed by how hungrily he finds himself gazing at Light, searching desperately for something that he knows he is not going to find, yet is unable to stop himself from yearning to see.

Everyone else from the task force leaves shortly thereafter. Soichiro puts a hand to his son’s shoulder wordlessly before he leaves, and then it is just Light, L, and the shinigami left as the sun starts to set behind L’s headstone. Only then, at last, does Light’s expression change: a slow, all-encompassing smile that starts first with one side of his mouth, then the other, and then finally reaches and lights up both of his eyes.

 

 

 

During the Yotsuba investigation, everything feels different. Enough so that L is forced to conclude that Light cannot be Kira now, even if it is very probable—most likely true—that he had been Kira before. It is a horribly painful realization to make, especially when the full implications and consequences of it are beyond L’s ability to grasp considering that he has no idea _how_ such a thing is possible, nor what it indicates about Light. Whether Light had been forced to be Kira. Whether he had chosen it. If so, whether he had deliberately given up that choice, and why he would ever do such a thing. There are too many variable to ever reach a satisfying conclusion. But such a conclusion is exactly what L needs, because he is in over his head, over his heart, though it hurts to admit that even to himself.

The thing is that Light is charming. The thing is that when he laughs, it catches L’s breath in his throat, especially if he is the one who made that laugh happen. The thing is that L thinks Light is beautiful, in a terrible, twisted sort of way. L has always thought that, which—he denies even to himself, because it is a terrible thing to think, let alone to feel. L has always associated an appreciation of beauty with an appreciation of justice. To find that beauty can exist elsewhere shakes him.

As does Light, that first time he kisses L.

It takes L completely by surprise, as few things ever do. He wants to put up his hands and push Light away, wants to shove him aside, wants to affect a look of deep, pitying scorn afterwards—or perhaps he only wants to want that, because he doesn’t want it, really. What he really wants is to take his hands and push them through Light’s hair and run them over the back of Light’s neck and feel the pulse there at the side of his throat, and deepen the kiss until neither of them can remember how it started nor guess how it will end. In the end he doesn’t do anything, and Light, after a few moments, pulls away and looks at L, his dark eyes clouded, his expression unreadable this close.

“Well?” he says.

L feels his mouth open but he does not say anything, simply breathes. He never saw this one coming. “Why?” he asks when he can.

Light’s expression shifts towards amused, then self-satisfied. “I see the way you look at me,” he says. That simple statement confirms all of L’s greatest fears: that he is not as unreadable as he needs to be to complete this case successfully; that Light can see through him; that Light knows too much, knows the truth, and none of this can ever be turned back or made right. It is already too late.

Defensively, a parry: “And what of the way you look at me?”

Light’s gaze drops from L’s eyes to his slightly-parted mouth. “Yes,” he says quietly. “What of that?”

L has never been one to succumb to, or even be tempted by, sexual or romantic desire. But it has never been this much of an issue before. The sense of wanting, of being _wanted,_ has never been this strong. In any other situation L would have been able to forgive himself for giving into it. Loneliness of the kind that he has lived his life well-accustomed to is all-powerful and often all-consuming. If, just once, he could shed himself of it, be free of it: that would be a powerful thing in turn. It is just that it happens at the worst possible time, with the worst possible person, and the worst possible thing is that L finds himself powerless to stop it.

 

 

 

Light takes on the L persona a short time after L and Watari’s funerals, with the task force’s blessings. L, watching them move the headquarters to Light’s new apartment and essentially hand over all sovereignty and control of the investigation to Light’s hands, even after L _died_ trying to question the rules of the Death Note and, therefore, Light’s remaining shreds of possible innocence—it strikes him, quite suddenly, how incompetent the lot of them are, how all too willing they are to pass Light the reins rather than maintain any sort of incredulity or suspicion of him, because that possibility—that truth that Light is Kira, and was at the start—is just too terrible for any of them to bear. L cannot understand that impulse; though perhaps he should be more forgiving of it, considering his own actions that led to his death. But at least he never deluded himself into thinking that he had been making the right choices, and the first life he endangered was his own.

(The lies he still tries to tell himself to avoid the guilt, the shame, that plagues him still! He thinks part of the reason he chose to stay behind in this realm rather than move on after his death is because he wanted, at last, to suffer for his mistakes—to watch the consequences of what would happen because of the wrong choices that he made.)

Time moves differently in the existence that L inhabits now, and so he skims over the events of Light’s life as they happen like someone flipping the pages of a book and catching only fleeting glimpses of the words written on every page. It is frustrating, and L tries to hold on to certain moments longer than others and finds that he can’t, that everything is left up to the whim of fate, or circumstance. He sees Light with his family, laughing—sees him alone in his apartment, scrawling names in the Death Note until the early morning hours—sees Light having perfunctory, passionless sex with poor Misa, who is still trapped beneath Light’s thumb of influence—sees the way Light smiles, at certain moments, and there is something peculiar about the smile that makes L think he knows exactly what Light is thinking: that Light is remembering L, and gloating, because the fight is over now and he has forever won.

 

 

 

When they start having sex it is a strange agreement made between the two of them, a wordless one, that finds Light on his hands and knees in front of L more often than not, and L trying his best every time to draw it out as long as he can, to deny Light’s orgasm until the last possible moment, as if to say—you control me out there, but _I_ control you in here. And he does: Light always does as he is told, and oftentimes L does not even need to say anything in order to get Light to do it. L does not know how much time has passed since he first started fucking Light right now, but he can feel Light’s whole body trembling, the backs of his thighs shaking, and L runs one hand over them, a little amazed, and leans over Light’s back and puts his teeth against the place where Light’s neck meets his shoulder and digs deep.

Light gasps and turns his head towards L, trying to find his mouth with his own, and L lets him, kisses him as Light trembles and small helpless noises escape him seemingly without Light realizing. L watches the expressions on Light’s face change after they kiss, Light’s eyes shut tight, L unable to look away, fascinated, enthralled by every twitch and shift that passes over Light’s face in response to the steady movement of L’s hips. L changes the pace, staggers it and makes it uneven, and the noise Light makes sounds a little like one of agony. Light stops moving and puts one hand to the side of Light’s face, trying to look at him, his other hand bracing himself still against the headboard of the bed.

Light’s eyes snap open and he looks at L. “Don’t stop,” he says, one of his hands reaching behind him to skitter momentarily over L’s hips, the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, before falling uselessly to the bed again. “Fuck, Ryuzaki, please—”

So L fucks him again, amazed by how little he seems to feel any of it, how much he is focused solely on Light’s reactions, the way his body twists and his hands fist in the fabric of the bed sheets and how, towards the end, he hides his face as if he cannot bear to let L watch him anymore, to see the way his eyes are watering from the unbearable unending pleasure of it, the anguish—

“For the love of God,” Light gasps against the pillows, still shaking all over, “touch me, please, _touch me,_ I can’t—”

L does, wrapping his left hand around Light’s cock and slowly, gently starting to stroke him. He tries not to overstimulate Light too quickly, tries to keep him right on the edge of orgasm for as long as he can, but it has been so long already and Light is so close that nearly the moment that L touches him he starts shuddering all over and comes on the towel that L had placed over the top of the bed in anticipation of this moment. L slows the movement of his own hips, gently fucking Light through it, finally slowing and stopping as Light’s shuddering passes and he lifts his head, his eyes bright, a mark left from his own teeth on the back of his hand where he had bitten down, groaning, rather than cry out.

L pulls out of him carefully, trying not to hurt him. Light makes a small noise, then falls onto his side, then his back, and puts his arm over his eyes. L just watches him for a moment. Amazing, he thinks. That fate (foolishness, rather, he thinks) would find him here in this moment, looking at this, feeling so many things that he cannot describe or name or comprehend. He still has not come but he hardly notices that, or even at this moment cares.

Light, sweaty, his breathing ragged, finally lifts his arm from his eyes and looks at L. He licks his lips, his eyelashes still damp from his tears from before, and looks at L’s face, then his dick.

“What do you want?” he asks, his voice a little hoarse.

L considers, not entirely sure. “Your mouth,” he says at last, and Light obligingly sits up, pulls off the condom from L’s dick, and so quickly pushes L back against the bed and encompasses him with his mouth that L leans his head back and shuts his eyes and threads his fingers through Light’s long hair and grips tight.

Through it all, he can feel Light smiling.

 

 

 

L watches over Near’s investigation a little at first, though it is galling to watch someone else use his work to try and prove something that in many ways defies the concept of being proven. It needles L to be forced now, in the end, into the role of observer and do nothing but watch as Near does things that L never would have done—makes choices that L never would have made. But maybe that is why L is dead and Near isn’t. Maybe watching this is part of the penance that L has to pay.

Sometimes L walks through the world and watches no one, simply tries to remember what it feels like to be alive. He cannot feel the warmth of the sun, or the chill of the cold, or the touch of a breeze as it whispers by him. He never thought that he would miss these things—he had often thought, when he was alive, that it would be better to feel nothing at all like this, to not have to worry about the sensory input from the world that had so often overwhelmed and pained him. Everything had always been too loud, too harsh, too bright, too much.

Now L feels nothing but time, in a way that is all too unfamiliar, that is nauseating in its strangeness. Time, for him, does not run smooth anymore, is no longer linear. Time twists and turns and pools in small eddies, veritable whirlpools, within which he becomes trapped and held against his will for longer than linear time would ever allow. He is pinioned against the river and it forces his head under the water, over and over again, so that when he resurfaces, gasping, he cannot tell in which direction he has been traveling, if he has been traveling at all.

He watches Near get closer to the truth, to being able to prove it; watches Mello struggle and fight and clamor towards some kind of certainty, a resistance. Watches Aizawa and Mogi start to question everything they thought they knew—watches Light, through it all, smiling that same goddamn smile, that well-practiced sneer.

One night Light is sitting alone in the dark, drinking a glass of whiskey with his feet on his desk, the Death Note lying there, the two open pages filled with Light’s neat, obsessive scrawl, listing names after names of people whom Light has now condemned to death. One hand around the glass, the other holding a pen. Those same hands that once held L as he gasped and lay dying. Those same hands that once held L as he gasped and lay shuddering, shaking, coming apart—

And Light smiles that smile, takes a sip of his drink. “Oh, Ryuzaki,” he says to the silence, and L feels time grab him by the throat and pin him here against this moment, press his face against the glass and whisper, _look, right here,_ “it really is no fun without you anymore.”

 

 

 

Light is kissing him, grinding against L’s body with his own, his hands roaming freely over L’s shoulders and back and hips and chest and for once L lets him, finds that the shifting array of touches does not unnerve him, rather that he leans into them, lets Light hold him down, kisses Light and makes no move of his own to touch Light back.

Light leans back after a bit, breathless, the color high in his face, and shrugs out of his button-down shirt, kicks off his pants. He looks at L keenly, his head slightly tilted, and hooks his fingers under the hem of L’s jeans—a question, and an invitation.

L nods, and Light undoes the button of his jeans and begins to slide them past Light’s thighs, his knees. Never once has Light commented on the old marks that cross-hatch the skin of L’s hips, for which L is grateful, yet every time they are revealed he still feels the soft rise of doubt, of shame in the back of his throat.

Light throws L’s jeans off to the side and turns his head to kiss the inside of L’s thigh. L sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them, Light is looking up at him from between his legs, palming himself through his underwear, his upper teeth digging into his lower lip.

L reaches for the lube and a condom and tosses them to Light. “Here,” he says, and when Light shucks off his boxers and makes as if to lube himself up, L says, quietly, “No,” and unwraps the condom and rolls it carefully onto Light’s dick, watching as Light shivers gently at his touch.

Light raises an eyebrow at L when he has finished this. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” L says; and then adds, to break the tension a little: “fuck me, Light,” and offers him a smile.

Light growls a little, which amuses L, and watches as L slicks two fingers of his right hand and reaches behind himself, exhaling a little as he does so. “Lean back,” L says after a few moments, and Light does. L puts his knees on either side of Light’s hips, still working his fingers into himself and looking down at Light beneath lying him, gently touching his own cock as he watches L.

“Okay,” L says; “okay,” and he removes his hand and wipes it on the towel beneath them and then lets Light position himself so that he can slide into L, slowly, and after a moment he does so. L hisses and closes his eyes and feels his thighs tighten. He makes himself relax, makes himself focus.

“Fuck.” Light exhales and puts his hands on either side of L’s hips. L opens his eyes and looks at him, the two of them motionless for a moment, until L starts at last to move, fucking himself on Light and setting a slow but steady rhythm. “Ryuzaki...” Light says, but quietly, and L pretends not to have heard him. Light skims his hands over L’s skin, touching but not-touching, and moves them up L’s chest to touch his nipples, just a little bit, before letting them fall again and touching the sensitive skin of L’s inner thighs, running through the hair there and making L twitch, making him moan.

Light smiles at that, of course. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, and skims his hands as best he can in this position over the back of L’s thighs, then the back of his knees, and this makes L shudder and lose his rhythm and fall forward a little against Light lying prone beneath him. “Fucking beautiful, L....”

“Don’t say that,” L says as Light’s hands grip at his ass and start lifting him up and down on Light’s dick.

Light’s smile deepens. “Why not?”

“Because you always—” L grits his teeth as Light starts to shift, starts to move beneath him “—you always say things like that, things you don’t mean.”

Light keeps shifting his position and disrupts the rhythm they had found, and L finds himself making a noise at that, whining, and feels his face start to turn bright red. Light finally manages to sit up so that he is sitting with L in his lap straddling him, and the two of them are nearly face-to-face. His hands on L’s ass encourage L to start fucking himself on Light again, and so L, feeling undone, feeling already as if he has lost fucking everything, and he has, does for once as Light intimates.

“Who says,” Light starts to say quietly—and without waiting for L to tell him to do so, as he usually does, he puts his hand around L’s cock and starts to bring him off. L is too overcome at the moment to do anything but let it happen, and he lets his head fall to Light’s shoulder so that his breath is ghosting across Light’s neck, his collarbone. “—That I don’t mean it?” Light twists his hand and kisses the side of L’s neck, licks the line of L’s throat, and L can’t stop from moaning again, stimulated all over, one of Light’s hands on his dick, the other holding the curve of his ass, and Light’s tongue, his clever mouth, tracing something indecipherable over L’s neck and collarbone and the dip at the hollow of his throat.

It is hard to breathe. L does not know where to put his hands and so wraps his arms around Light’s shoulders, holding on to him, gripping Light’s hair between his fingers and letting Light fuck him even as something whispers to him _you will make all these mistakes and then you will die—_

He amazes himself by coming; it usually takes him longer than this to come, yet this orgasm slams over him all at once and he cannot stop it from happening once he realizes that it is, nor does he try to. He comes over Light’s chest and has to bury his face in Light’s shoulder so that he does not have to watch this and be ashamed, as shame is trying to creep over him even as his orgasm still leaves him shuddering and falling apart in Light’s steady, reliable _(reliable?!)_ hands, one coaxing L through his orgasm and the other running soothingly over L’s back, his shoulders.

Finally L can take it no more, and he has to push Light away, every sensation too much for him, oversensitive post-orgasm. Light understands and falls back, L’s come on his stomach and chest (L flushes at the sight). L slowly lifts himself off of Light’s dick and, tremblingly, sits on the bed and tries to catch his breath. As he does so, Light watches him, lazily pulling off the condom and starting to fuck himself into his hand. His gaze never leaves L’s face, but watches as L slowly regains his composure.

“Hey,” L says, and reaches towards Light, “let me,” but Light shakes his head.

“’S okay,” he says, still watching L’s face, his tongue coming out to wet his lower lip. He starts to jerk himself off faster. L does not know what to do, pinned by Light’s gaze, so he merely watches as Light finally puts his head back and comes, getting semen onto his hand and lower abdomen.

Light watches through lidded eyes as L uses the edge of the towel to wipe off Light’s stomach. When L gets particularly close Light uses his other hand to grip L by the back of the head and pull him in for a kiss.

“Like I said,” he murmurs against L’s mouth; “beautiful,” and L does not know what to say.

Time, merciless, holding him captive.

 

 

 

L is there when Light manipulates Kiyomi Takada; he is there when Mikami gains the power of the Death Note and begins putting people to death; he is there when Mello and Matt both die trying to maneuver Light into a mistake that will prove that he is Kira and that the powers of the Death Note exist; he is there when Near thinks he has finally drawn the noose around Light’s neck and begins to pull. And he is there when Light, scornfully, tells Near that he has won, only to have that victory torn from his grasp the same way that it had once been torn from L’s.

It is not what L had expected. He feels no pride, no satisfaction in watching Light’s fall. He wishes he did—wishes that he felt anything other than inevitability, something like grief. Things could have been so different. Or perhaps that is the fool in him talking. He has had a long time, now, to be foolish.

He is there when Light lies dying, blood dripping from between his fingers as he tries to hold himself together and is unable to do so. And as Light lies there, L realizes something—realizes that the barrier between his world and Light is thinning rapidly as Light approaches that long lonely path to death of his own. Light can see between the edges of their two worlds, can see, at last, L’s ghost looking down at him as life slips between his fingers, and L, watching him, can reach out and feel not nothingness, but warm skin, and Light shaking.

“You,” Light says, gasps. L just looks at him. Was it worth it? he wants to ask. There are so many things that he wants to ask. But he knows now that none of the answers that Light can give him will ever matter. There is nothing left that Light can say.

Light coughs a harsh broken laugh. “How long have you been watching?” he asks. L does not give him the satisfaction of the answer _this whole time._ He still has some dignity left.

“That long, huh?” Light says anyway. He almost smiles—and L is fervently grateful that he does not, because he would not be able to bear seeing that, not now. Goddamn you, Light Yagami, he thinks.

“You know I’m not sorry,” Light says. L does. L can feel the relentless press of time again, but now bearing down upon Light, readying itself to bear him up in its inescapable river and drag him away, away. L thinks about Light holding L in his arms as he had died—how it had felt, for the briefest of moments, as if Light were fighting back against that same river then, and fighting to keep L from slipping away.

“Listen,” Light says, and coughs. Red flecks of blood scatter from his lips. And this time he does smile, and it hurts to look at, it hurts for L to look at anything at all. “Some things I meant,” Light says, and his mouth twists; the bright light in his eyes starts, inexorably, to dim, in a way that L finds all too recognizable. “Some things were true.”

His voice stops in his throat. L watches as he dies, his hands scrabbling at bullet holes in his stomach, filled with blood. L watches and the watching is bitter, the watching seems to never end, until at last all that is left is time, and a corpse.

Not enough, L thinks. It’s not enough.

 

 

 

(The night before they capture Higuchi they lie in bed together, Light dozing, L unable to sleep and watching him. Light’s hand rests against L’s hair, and starts, after a long while, to move: to caress L’s hair with a tenderness that L never would have expected, nor even wanted, of him.

Light’s voice startles L—sleepy, unfocused, musing. “When we prove that I’m not Kira,” he says, “then what will we do?”

L closes his eyes. There is no ‘after’ proving that Light is not Kira—there is no proving that. He cannot tell if Light is trying to goad him into saying that aloud, or if Light, half-asleep as he is right now, truly thinks in this moment that there is a future for either of them, together.

L can feel his throat tightening, tears coming to his eyes that he has to work hard to master and control. His silence seems to upend Light, who sits up a little and looks down at L resting against him.

“Hey,” Light says, “I’m sorry,” and he sounds as if he genuinely means it. “Go back to sleep, yeah? We can worry about this after we finally catch Higuchi. We can worry about all of this tomorrow.”

He smoothes his hand over L’s forehead, then his hair, and does not comment when L hides his face against Light’s shirt and gives in, just for a moment, to tears.)

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
